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An brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a village for more than four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents began documenting their heritage. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity did not stand in the path of the locals gathering in the same pub, going to the very same place of worship and sending their kids to the identical school.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the complete community, establishing their headquarters in a house on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a period, locals could still jump across, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to show ID, although all understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still see each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “same to you” to a West German local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how how long a section structure they desired to maintain. They opted for a section on the west perimeter, near where a villager was able to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the border was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Structures

A pair of watchtowers are conserved together with a collection of displays illustrating the most dramatic moments in the community’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed particular approval to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but not both, lest they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but in excess of twice as many individuals (well over 300) died attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director reminds me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They did not backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of destination. About 15,000 visited each year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Modern Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and big vehicle area – is likely to